Oops!

[kenmorton]

Mananged to destroy my engine on Tuesday night!
After letting it idle on Sunday while I was messing about with the aircon it overheated and spewed the coolant out. So after turning it off and putting everything back on and letting it cool for at least 15 minutes I tried starting it. Fired up first turn no problems and it didn't look as though it had lost too much coolant but I wasn't about to take the radiator cap off to fill it up so I thought I would give it a little run out to test the aircon.
Well the aircon was working fine but 10 miles away from home I saw the temp guage was showing 134C! Drove back fairly sedately with the temp never droping below 110C but got back.
Tuesday night topped the coolant up - about 3-4 litres. Started up again first turn of the key, amazing!
Went for a little gentle run, warmed up fine and settled to 87c (normal) and all the while listening for any unusual noises but nothing seemed amiss. Assumed I had got away with it and just amazed at the fantastic Honda engineering so I gave it a good lungfull. Still pulled really well to 7250 rpm in 1st, 2nd and 3rd so started to go home. Then I noticed the whisps of blue smoke coming out of the engine cover vents, f**k! Well the smoke got worse and it finally cut out about 2 miles from home. 2nd time I it has had to be towed back but at least the last time it was 1.00 a.m so nobody witnessed it!
Not bothered to strip it yet. Got my eye on a couple of Legends on Ebay, last one went for £400 so with the current price of scrap I reckon I should end up with an engine for £250 plus quite a few spares as well (new wheel bearings are over £100 each). There are a few jobs that I have been putting off (cooling system was one of them) so no excuses now when the engine is out.